The South American Division executive committee of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, in a July 8 vote, approved the practice of the ordination of women elders in that geographical area. According to an Adventist World article, the action was taken because “the context for ministry during the COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic has made it crucial to affirm the leadership and missionary role of the church elder, including women.”(1)
But the Seventh-day Adventist Church is a Protestant denomination. We base our beliefs and practices on the Bible. We are a prophetic movement intended by heaven to help God’s people be more, not less, biblical in belief and practice. It is difficult to see how after 2000 years church surviving and thriving in spite of much more deadly diseases, a virus with better than a 99% survival rate requires a sudden movement away from biblical practice. In the secular political world the covid crisis has been misused to bring unprecedented changes to voting practices and to suppress individual personal liberties. And now, to see the same crisis used to promote an unbiblical position in the church is demoralizing.
Let’s take a moment to see what the Bible says:
In Titus 1:5-9 Paul writes,
For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you—if a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of dissipation or insubordination. For a bishop must be blameless, as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but hospitable, a lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict.
Here, an elder is to be the “husband of one wife,” mias gunaikos aner. The word aner is male specific in most Bible uses. And in every case, the word used for woman or wife here is female specific. How can a woman elder “hold fast the faithful word” when the practice itself is a denial of that Word?
1 Timothy 3:1-7:
This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?); not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.
In verse 2 the phrase “husband of one wife,” mias gunaikos andra, like the passage from Titus, uses the male specific word andra and the female specific word, gunaikos. The primary meaning for aner and andros, according to none other than BDAG (A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature) is “an adult human male, man, husband.”(2)
We love our sisters in the churches. But the simple fact is that to employ the title of “elder” is not necessary to lead a Bible study or to be active in church activities. This ill-timed action by leaders in the South American Division does not represent the will of the members, and will have an opposite effect in the churches. When our Bible workers encounter non-Adventists who know their Bibles, and they ask us for a Bible basis for the practice of ordaining women as elders, we won’t have one. To continue the practice of ordaining women as elders, just now, when God’s church has opportunity to be a voice for the kingdom instead of the culture, is to wave the white-flag of surrender.
God can help His church. Let’s return to Him. When we follow the Scripture, He will bless. When we follow the culture, we are in rebellion to Him.
1. https://www.adventistworld.org/south-america-division-votes-to-allow-women-elders/
2. Walter Bauer, F.W. Danker, W.F. Arndt, F.W. Gingrich, A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, pp. 79, 80.